March for Life, Part 5

Naturally, there were lots of Catholics there.

More pictures on the way, including the bravest people at the March, bar none.

March for Life, Part 4: Clothing

There were some neat T-shirts, sweatshirts, and stickers adoringing people, too.

March for Life Pictures, Part 3

There were some very powerful signs all over the place.

A lot of these stop signs had "Thank You, President Bush" on the back.

More March Pictures

A lot of signs used the president's own words to show his hypocrisy when it comes to his Culture of Death outlook.

You might remember that phrase from the "prayer" offered after the inauguration.

March for Life

Our whole family went to the March this year.  Below are some pictures from the March.  First up is the sign that Big Girl designed and Little Girl helped paint and carry.

As you can imagine, there were plenty of signs begging President Obama to not sign FOCA if it is passed.  (And asking, naturally, Congress to not even pass it to begin with.)

Travel Man had not been to a March before and was overwhelmed by the youth of the crowd.  Make no mistake - Pro Lifers are not a bunch of old people who want to stomp on everyone's fun! ;)

EWTN was there, as usual.  (In fact, we managed to be on TV - AND SEEN by our friends with whom we stayed - as we marched up Constitution Avenue.)

It was a beautiful day.  Clear, breezy, but in the mid to upper 40's.  I'll never forget that my first year marching it snowed more than 6 inches!  

There were plenty of signs that used the president's own words to point out the hypocrisy of his position on abortion.  (Bob Dornan's speech was magnificent in this respect!)  I'll post these pictures a little later, in another post, becuase Blogger is not being friendly about allowing me to upload right now.

On Being Pro Life

I took Big Girl to the March for Life this year. It was cold, though not as cold as it is today, praise God! Big Girl complained most of the time, but said later that she had fun.

But something interesting happened as we were stading on Constitution Avenue waiting for the beginning of the actual walking. We were standing near some seminarians (at least a dozen!), and Big Girl was tired of holding her sign from American Life League. She turned to one of the seminarians and asked, "Would you like my sign? I'm tired of holding it." He gladly took it, and commented to me that he is happy to see her and to see that she's Pro Life.

I answered, "Thank you, but you know that children are naturally so. It takes someone teaching them otherwise for them NOT to be Pro Life."

And that's really true. Show any child this picture:

...and he's bound to tell you it's a baby.

When Big Girl was with me while I planned and helped to coordinate a Pro Life ad for Mother's Day ("Thank you, Mom, for choosing life for me!"), she noticed the bumper stickers on my friend's car. Finally, she asked me what abortion was. When I was sure Little Girl could not hear (why expose her to that when she isn't ready?), I explained that abortion is when a woman does not want to have her baby, and so someone takes the baby out of her womb before it's ready to be born. (Have I mentioned lately how very much I hate that I will have to explain this to my children at some point?) This horrified - even revolted - her. She said that no one should do that. I agreed. It made her sad. It angered her. She just had a hard time believing that anyone could do such a thing.

Then I accidentally went farther than I meant to because I assumed she'd made a connection between that act and the result for the baby.

"That's why we pray to end abortion. Because it is so sad that all those babies die."

"THE BABIES DIE!!!???"

oops.

This information only confirmed it for her. She knew that abortion was wrong because Hubby and I said so and she trusted us. (This is, incidentally, where Little Girl is right now and why she can't go to the March yet.) But when she learned what it was, that abortion kills a baby before he is born, she truly understood why it's wrong.

When a child is told what abortion is no child takes that in and comes to the conclusion that it's just a woman's choice - that no one can or should intercede for the baby.

It's natural for children to be Pro Life. And nothing we do should try to convince them otherwise.

March for Life (UPDATED)

This is the third year I've signed up to go on the bus for the March. In fact, I was happy to also get a seat for Big Girl (though, really, I don't want to go, and I don't want to bring my children - I'd rather not have to do it).

However, there is now this:

...ICE STORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 6 AM EST MONDAY...

SLEET AND FREEZING RAIN WILL GRADUALLY CHANGE TO ALL FREEZING RAIN BY EARLY EVENING...THEN CONTINUE THROUGH MUCH OF TONIGHT BEFORE ENDING BY DAYBREAK MONDAY.

TOTAL SNOW AND SLEET ACCUMULATIONS WILL BE LESS THAN ONE INCH IN MOST LOCATIONS...RANGING UP TO TWO OR THREE INCHES FROM PORTIONS OF THE GREENBRIER COUNTY EAST INTO THE ALLEGHANY HIGHLANDS.

HOWEVER...TOTAL GLAZE ACCUMULATIONS FROM THE FREEZING RAIN WILL RANGE FROM ONE QUARTER TO AROUND ONE THIRD OF AN INCH ON ELEVATED SURFACES. THE WEIGHT OF ICE ON POWER LINES AND TREES WILL RESULT IN FALLING TREE BRANCHES AND POSSIBLE POWER OUTAGES.

AN ICE STORM WARNING MEANS SEVERE WINTER WEATHER CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED OR OCCURRING. SIGNIFICANT AMOUNTS OF ICE ACCUMULATIONS WILL MAKE TRAVEL DANGEROUS OR IMPOSSIBLE. TRAVEL IS STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. COMMERCE WILL LIKELY BE SEVERELY IMPACTED. IF YOU MUST TRAVEL...KEEP AN EXTRA FLASHLIGHT...FOOD...AND WATER IN YOUR VEHICLE IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY. ICE ACCUMULATIONS MAY LEAD TO SNAPPED POWER LINES...ADDING TO THE DANGER.

Well, isn't that nice?

Hubby said that chances are, the roads will be too dangerous for us to drive to the church where the bus is taking off. We'd have to leave before 5:30 (only slightly so, but still...), and right now, we've had about six hours of freezing rain and snow, with accumulations on the roads. And it's still coming down that way.

And so I might be watching the March on EWTN tomorrow with the entire family. (Hubby took a vacation day, and he said if the roads are too dangerous for me, he'll keep the vacation day and stay home with us.)

I am a bit bummed out. And we still can't go sledding.

Phooey.

[photos are mine from last year]

UPDATE: I did get to go! I only had a couple of pictures, since I was COMPLETELY paranoid about losing Big Girl. But it was very cool, with the exception of the fact that the aborted baby pictures were more spread out than last year. Why are they even bringing those? As one father on the bus said, "They are preaching to the choir here. I don't need my kids seeing that."

Yeah, me neither. I think sonogram pictures would be MUCH more effective. Pro aborts don't believe those pictures, and post-abortive women are sometimes tramautized by them.